


Blue Sky Holiday

by smolhombre



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Banter, Bathing/Washing, Beard Burn, Bearded Steve Rogers Appreciation, Captain America Sam Wilson, Comfort, Established Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, Gift Fic, M/M, Rimming, Snark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-31
Updated: 2017-07-31
Packaged: 2018-12-09 05:32:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11662617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smolhombre/pseuds/smolhombre
Summary: Steve is trying to help, at least.-“Maybe I’ve had a long day. Did we think about that?”“I’m sure painting fruit bowls in the middle of the woods is exhausting.”





	Blue Sky Holiday

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JanuaryVictim](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JanuaryVictim/gifts).



“How’s it going, Captain America?”

Sam hardly looks up to the front door as Steve shakes an errant brown leaf from his hair, grown long enough to barely curl at the nape of his neck.

He doesn’t answer, tapping away at the StarkPad in his lap.

“That good, huh?”

The bristles on Steve’s beard rasp against Sam’s scalp as he presses his lips to the crown of Sam’s head en route to the kitchen. Sam keeps on at the email in his lap, increasingly aware of the heavy, knotted frown tight between his brows. He’d been leaning heavy on the bottles of Excedrin in their bathroom cabinet the past two weeks, for some Dr. Doom or Superia related reason or another, and tonight Sam knows he’ll be back to it, his liver bedamned.

Steve puts a beer on the coffee table in front of him silently. He even moves it to one of their coasters, after visibly thinking better of placing it flat on the wood. His home training was going, but slow going. Sam feels his shoulders loosen a bit, though Steve doesn’t say anything else as he settles on the recliner next to the couch Sam is splayed out on. He ignores the weight of Steve’s gaze until he finally shoves the tablet between the couch cushions.

“...Wanna talk about it?”

Sam takes a gulp of the beer, pinching the bridge of his nose. He needs a few deep breaths before speaking. “One of my regulars at the VA, from before. She’s not doing so good.”

Steve looks at Sam for a long, speculative moment, his chin propped in his hand and his elbow resting on the recliner so he’s curled as close to Sam as possible, given they’re on separate pieces of furniture. His thumb brushes the chapped skin on his lower lip, and Sam thinks he can hear the dry skin scraping in the air of their empty living room.

“You want to go back to it?”

He flops back, flat to the couch. Saratoga Springs had been the best middle ground they could come to between the compound in Clifton and Steve’s ghosts in Brooklyn, all the geographic convenience and nothing that made it feel like a home. On a good day, Sam thinks this couch, the subpar showerhead in their master bath, even their lumpy mattress, would be comfortable, or at least comforting, in another place. Another life; an old one. But altogether, here, just set his skin too tight against the muscle and heat and life in his body.

“No. It’s a bit too late, even so.”

“...If you wanted, I would —”

“You can’t even stay retired for four months? That’s your limit? Barnes guessed five and a half, but I gave you at least seven.”

Steve swings one of his legs out to kick at the couch. “Sam, I mean it. If you want to go back, don’t — don’t not do it and be miserable thinking you’d be letting someone down.”

“Just myself. I know. If I am remembering correctly, that’s almost exactly the speech I gave you, when you thought about picking it back up the first time.”

It is quiet.

“You’re a better Cap than I could ever be, and a better man. It’s hard to be both.”

Sam has had this fight so much the words to rebut Steve mean nothing sitting useless in his throat, too tired to even go through the motions.

“Can I run you a bath, at least? You must be beat to not want to argue with me.”

Sam flings his arm over his eyes, flipping Steve the bird as he does. He stays there until Steve’s big, loud footsteps fade into their bathroom. He still walks like he’s five nothing and looking for a fight to prove himself, which would be endearing until it was two fifty four in the morning, and Sam was just finally coasting to sleep as Steve ambled to the bathroom, or like now, when Sam’s head is close to bursting clear off his shoulders and Sam thinks he could kill his partner.

There is the smell of eucalyptus and mint carried on warm steam pillowing out of the door next to him — if he’s glad for the tiny, cramped floorplan of their little house or not, Sam can’t be sure — and then the small clinking of two pills on the table. He reaches for them blindly and takes them dry.

“I’ll blow you for these...later. Much later. One day.”

Steve snorts. “I’ll hold my breath for that. Come on, get up.”

Sam lets himself be half dragged, half guided up, lead heavy in the soles of his feet. Steve is humming as he helps Sam out of his Fordham sweatshirt, the loose, stretched out joggers, and helps him sink into the tub. Too hot, because Steve doesn’t know how else to draw them, but the sharp, clean smell of the bubbles still eases looseness into his chest as he tries to relax into it.

“I know you haven’t eaten. Can I make you —”

“You in the kitchen unattended does the opposite of relax me.”

He huffs sinking down to the floor opposite the tub, propped up against the toilet. “Okay, then. Be that way.”

Sam swivels his head to look at him when the bathroom is quiet and Steve shows no signs of moving from his spot.

“Unbelievable,” Sam scoffs. “Bring me to a bath and can’t follow through to do anything but watch me. I’m so relaxed, Steve, thanks.”

Steve rocks forward so his forearms are resting on the lip of the tub, his face very close. Sam can smell the Big Red he was chewing earlier, see the stripe of green above the pupil in his left eye, the golden glint in the dark hairs of his beard, stirring something low in his belly, warm underneath his skin, burning deeper than the too hot water. That’s one way to decompress, he supposes.

“Do you want me to take care of you, Sam?”

He resolutely does not lean forward, even as Steve’s eyes go heavy lidded, his straight, long lashes barely starting to sheen as they catch the humidity in the room.

“I want you to put yourself to use, Rogers. Just sitting back and watching me naked in the tub sounds more like a reward for you than me.”

Steve is rolling his eyes reaching for the washcloth and drizzling soap on it. “Maybe _I’ve_ had a long day. Did we think about that?”

“I’m sure painting fruit bowls in the middle of the woods is exhausting.”

He drags the washcloth purposefully down Sam’s chest, past his navel, to brush against the line of his cock. Steve doesn’t look at him as he makes a show of bringing it back up and lathering more suds on it to stroke the line of Sam’s shoulders, the slope of his neck, the tense knots at his back. After a few passes, Steve drops the washcloth — Sam watches it float uselessly in the water around him, adrift the current that his limbs make as Steve repositions them — and moves behind him to knead at the soapy, tense muscles there.

It is a testament to Sam’s current state of mind that he groans appreciatively, his head lolling back bonelessly into the pressure of Steve’s hands; Sam is the only one who gives truly good massages in their house. Steve will hold this against him, later, to gloat, but Sam thinks it may be worth it as he digs in with his thumbs on each side of the line of his spine, hard enough to draw out a little hiss.

Steve leans close, presses two soft kisses in the silky space behind his ear. Sam lets himself sigh back into it as he trails further down the side of his neck.

“What was that you said about my horrible massages?” He murmurs, grinning into Sam’s skin.

“Fuck _you_ ,” Sam groans. “I’m clearly desperate.”

Steve finds it within himself to shut up long enough Sam gets a peaceful few minutes that’s just the slick, wet sound of their skin together before one of his arms wraps around to Sam’s front. His thumb brushes over a nipple before his fingers trail downwards, stoking idle patterns on his belly as Steve presses close to Sam from behind.

“Okay?”

Sam’s arousal had been simmering low and secondary to the relief Steve was kneading into his back, but as Sam watches the rolled cuff of Steve’s shirt sink into the warm water, the thin cotton transparent and clinging to the muscles in his forearm as Sam feels the first teasing touches at his length, he is suddenly not able to think of much else.

Steve’s hand is a bit rough even in the water as he wraps fully around Sam to give him three slow, firm strokes.

“Okay?” He asks again, nuzzling into the juncture of Sam’s neck and shoulder, sucking bruises and licking the burn his beard raises hot to Sam’s skin.

“Have I ripped your arm off yet?” Sam breathes, eyeing the rolling muscles in Steve’s arms as he releases his grip to reach down further, past the tightening weight at the base of his cock and to Sam’s entrance. He is heavy at Sam’s back now, folded over his shoulder. Sam can feel his smile pressed close as he bucks upwards into the touch, water splashing out of the tub.

“You’re going to make me clean that later.”

“I am absolutely going to make you clean that later,” Sam nods.

Then, suddenly, Steve’s hands are gone.

Steve is whistling when he picks up the washcloth again, lathering and rubbing it over Sam’s arms, his back, down his chest, even lifting up Sam’s legs to wash down to the insteps of his feet and the sensitive skin behind his knee while Sam gapes at him, open mouthed, but too proud to come close to begging.

He takes extra care to smack a loud, chaste kiss to Sam’s cheek as he rises, reaching down to help Sam out of the tub.

Sam splashes him hard enough Steve has to shake his head like a dog and is sputtering water, falling backwards so his hip catches on the lip of their sink.

“You are an asshole.”

Steve, cupping his side, looks up at him owlishly as he crawls out of the tub. “ _I’m_ the asshole?”

He ignores him as he snatches the towel off the counter, patting himself dry. Steve clucks his tongue and grabs the towel from his hands where he was scrubbing at his arms.

“Don’t pout. I’m the pouter.”

He kneels down to the floor and rubs the towel up one leg, then the other. Steve stays on his knees brushing the towel only perfunctorily past his cock, reaching up to dry at Sam’s middle. Sam hears the soft rustling noise of it falling on the floor next to him but doesn’t get to look down and ask who the fuck Steve Rogers is to leave wet towels on his bathroom floor before Steve is leaning forward to mouth at the tops of his thighs, the crease of his hips narrowing to a V beneath his navel, never getting too close to the interest stirring back to life in his groin.

Steve is sucking a bruise in the cradle of his hips when he bites the tender skin there, all the unyielding pressure Sam loves to buck up into — that he arches forward into now, until he slips on the wet towel and falls backwards, only just stopping himself from eating it entirely by Steve’s hurried grip on him which is immediately painful the second Sam’s panic subsides.

“I am...breaking up with you. Let go, you’re killing me. Let my organs live.”

“I’m — sorry, I didn’t mean that one.” Steve rises fully to his feet, wincing. “Let’s — let me try again. I’m sorry.”

“You must feel bad if the words ‘I’m sorry’ are actually coming out of your dumb mouth,” Sam grumbles, reaching down to drain the tub.

Steve sweeps him up before he’s fully righted himself, only just avoiding knocking their heads together as he carries Sam bridal style to their bedroom despite Sam’s choked protests.

“I hate when you do that, you know I —”

He drops Sam onto the mattress, which groans under the sudden weight, and only further in earnest when Steve crawls to loom over him.

“Love when I ride you hard and put you up wet,” Steve drawls, his hands stroking Sam’s sides, grinding down so his jeans drag against Sam’s bare skin, delicious enough his eyes start to cross before he catches himself.

“You remember how to top. That’s nice. Who have you been practicing with?”

Steve bends down to bite his collarbone too hard to be for pleasure, but Sam giggles a bit anyway, sighing when the bite turns into a bruising kiss, trailed down to capture each nipple in turn into its velvet heat. Sam rakes his fingers through Steve’s hair as he trails lower, nibbling at the bottom half moon of his belly button before rising to fish around their nightstand drawer, leant back on his heels.

“Roll over.”

Sam watches him warm lube between his hands with an eyebrow cocked. “I just washed these sheets.”

For the first time tonight, Steve seems close to being genuinely upset, his frown now is accompanied by the crease in his brow that precedes a rousing lecture about morality and rightness or puppy dog eyes that always got him everything he wanted, because Sam is a big soft idiot.

Sam reaches up to bring Steve down and press their lips together. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs into the kiss. After everything, the simple back and forth of it is the most comforting thing Sam could ever think to hope for, a routine — Steve knowing to suck Sam’s top lip between his teeth, Sam knowing how to rake his nails at the base of Steve’s skull — that they know because they have worked on it, learned each other, and worked on learning how to love each other. Sam knows this, Sam loves it. It’s something Sam wants, and he feels the remaining anxious fight in his body melt away under Steve’s careful attention.

He pulls away when he is surely blue in the face, Steve smiling at him blissfully dopey, pupils blown fat black and glassy as marbles, mouth red and wet and swollen. Sam can’t not lean up again for another breathless kiss.

Then Steve puts his lubed up hands on either of Sam’s cheeks and Sam wants to cry.

“I hate you.”

“Oops.”

Steve winks at him before making a show of wiping them on the quilted bedspread beneath them. There is a vessel close to bursting that Sam can feel thumping in his temple.

“Roll over, please.”

Sam sputters. “After _that_ —”

Steve wiggles an arm underneath his hips and flips him over with a soft _thwump_ , like Sam’s own considerable bulk is nothing. Sam feels the bed shift as Steve moves to kiss the line of Sam’s shoulders, down the ridges of his spine — he is halfway down before Sam decides to look away from the stain on their comforter next to his face and try, at least, to enjoy it. Steve’s hands follow the wet warmth of his mouth, then knead at the give of Sam’s rear, down his thighs, back up again to brush against Sam’s entrance, Steve all the while murmuring nonsense Sam doesn’t much care about into his hip.

The drag of Steve’s dry, calloused thumb against the sensitive skin there has Sam grinding forward, and the _click_ of the lube bottle behind him has slickness beading Pavlovian on his dick before a slippery digit is even back to pry at him.

“As if you care about the sheets. I know how sloppy you like it.” Steve’s voice is gravel, and Sam’s cheeks are hot as Steve traces a too-wet, too-slick thumb — Sam buries his face in the pillows, the illicit feeling of that excess like a weight driving him forward, draped heavy against him — at Sam’s greedy give until he can just start to slip in.  
Steve is a lot of things, and if he’s not especially patient or thorough waiting to pull muffins out of the oven or waiting the last five seconds of putting any single thing in the microwave, he is painstaking teasing Sam to pliancy, his big, rough fingers kept slicker than strictly required, the noise of it half the reason Sam rolls his hips up to meet his hand.

“With me?”

Sam bears up to Steve’s pressure, mewling when his fingers crook against the ridgy, beautiful place that makes stars explode behind Sam’s eyelids.

“You feel that? You tell me.”

He feels Steve’s smile in the kiss he presses to Sam’s back, then his hands are gone.

“Wh—”

Steve’s mouth is hot and slick and filthy occupying his fingers’ vacancy, the drag of his stubble against the skin of Sam’s thighs, the cleft of his ass, kindling that sets his whole body alight. He feels close to screaming, desperate to get Steve _closer_ , to feel that burn truly bloom to a fire, simplified down to the only thing Sam can think or say:

“More, more, more —”

Steve makes him wait, keeps his tongue unbearably light more often than not, sometimes pulling away almost entirely, only to double back down harder and faster but not long enough for Sam to reach that white-hot tightness starting to curl in his belly.

Sam will not beg, especially not tonight, and Steve maybe realizes this after Sam lets out a breathy, wholly embarrassing sob when Steve hits his prostate again. His fingers are back, and between his mouth stoking the beard burn between his thighs and the now unyielding pressure in him that feels the right side of fullness, Sam crests his release with a cry he mostly manages to muffle in his pillow.

He listens to Steve pant heavily behind him, unable to even feel a single bone in his body, much less try to turn around. He flops down heavily next to Sam, his face a wreck, beard glistening and mouth swollen to near pulpiness.

“I love you,” Sam breathes, finally.

Steve, beaming like the idiot he is, leans forward. Sam presses a hand to Steve’s mouth, nose wrinkled. “Not that much.”

He makes a show of rolling his eyes before stomping to the bathroom on his perpetually heavy feet. Sam is glad, he gets to try and roll over gingerly without looking at Steve’s dumb, smug face watching him do it. The first second on his back the quilt is a cold, blissful relief. But as Steve comes back, wiping toothpaste foam from his mouth with the back of one hand, a washcloth in the other that he uses to wipe off Sam’s front, then his sensitive, soft cock, the tingling burn of it returns tenfold.

“...Ass sore? I can put some aloe on it, if you want,” Steve says innocently, when Sam in unable to hide his squirming.

Sam just glowers, even as Steve reaches down for the soft throw blanket still mostly folded at the foot of their bed to throw over them, pulling Sam close.

“I’m sorry you had a bad day,” Steve murmurs after a minute, tracing nonsense patterns at Sam’s back and shoulders. Sam manages a shrug before kissing Steve’s neck. It’s part of the job, and part of his life. His life, and Steve’s, and theirs together. But they are here now, alive and breathing and it is the most important thing, really. Certainly as he breathes in the smell of Steve — the lavender soap and the cologne Sam picks out, because Steve has no taste except, apparently, in men — over Sam’s favorite laundry softener, the clean air smell of their not-home-house and their skin, warm and sweaty and pressed close, Sam can’t think of anything that means more.

It is quiet.

“I hope you remembered to pick that towel off the floor.”

**Author's Note:**

> A gift for the sweetest egg, @januaryvictim. Thank you to @oh_no_oh_dear for beta-ing!! <3
> 
> Thanks for reading! Feedback is always appreciated :)


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